How Ya Talk in Jersey and New York

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What if you were standing between a person from New York and a person from New Jersey who were talking at exactly the same time. You hear a “How awe ya” (Ellis “New York Slanguage”) and a “How ya doan” (Ellis “New Jersey Slanguage”), even though these two greeting mean exactly the same thing they are said in different ways. Where did their slang come from? Why is it different in other places? And how can locations as close as New York and New Jersey have any differences at all? This scenario makes you wonder about the differences in New York and New Jersey slang and how they have changed over the years.
Slang has developed immensely over the years and at most times originated in New York City. Most of the slang that has developed is a result of cultural history. “These words about the city, individually and taken together, retell in a new voice the story of metropolitan life down to the 1950's” (Allen 3). When people speak these words of slang they tell us something about the history and culture of cities which teaches us what was popular during that time and what most people enjoyed participating in. The popular culture of big American cities historically has come from New York City, and other large American cities contributed their words to New York as New York contributed to them (Allen 4). Slang has provided names for many aspects of city life that the English language had not, for example a nightclub was called a tenderloin and some parts of the city were defined as Hell’s Kitchen, a slum, or a ghetto (Allen 4-8). Most popular expressions always have some association with Manhattan because there is so much cultural diversity. “Popular speech and slang of New York both grew from and helped to make the climate of social difference, diversity, and conflict” (Allen 5).
What exactly is this language called slang? “Slang is a highly informal register of speech and does not ...